Novels by Cecily von Ziegesar: Gossip Girl You Know You ... - Weebly

to prepare for it, and I want to go to bed early.”
“Oh,” Serena said. She crossed her arms and sat back on her stool.
“I was hoping we’d all wind up partying in the Basses’ suite
upstairs. They still have it, don’t they?”
Back in tenth grade, Serena and Blair and her friends had spent
many a night in Chuck Bass’s suite, drinking and dancing, watching
movies and ordering room service, taking hot tubs. Together, they’d
pass out on the king-sized bed and stay there until they were sober
enough to make their way home.
Once, during a very drunken night at the end of tenth grade, Serena
and Blair were soaking in the hot tub, and Blair had kissed Serena
full on the lips. Serena hadn’t seemed to remember it the next
morning, but Blair never forgot it. Even though it was just an
impulse move that didn’t mean anything, thinking about that kiss
always made her feel hot and itchy and uncomfortable. That was
another reason why it had been such a relief when Serena went
away.
“The Basses still have the suite,” Blair said, standing up. “But they
really don’t appreciate people using it. This isn’t tenth grade
anymore,” she added coldly.
“Okay,” Serena said. She couldn’t say anything right, could she? At
least, not to Blair.
“Well, have a good weekend,” Blair said with a stiff smile, as if
they’d only just met. As if they hadn’t known each other all their
lives. She dropped twenty dollars on the table for their drinks.
“Excuse me,” she told the three tall boys who were blocking her
path. “Can I get by?”
Serena twirled her drink straw around in her glass and sipped the
dregs of her Cosmopolitan, watching Blair leave. The drink tasted
salty now, because she was about to cry again.
“Hey Blair—” Serena called out after her friend. Maybe if she just
blurted it all out, asked Blair why she was really mad, even
confessed to sleeping with Nate that one time, they could go on
being friends. They could start over. Serena might even start taking
an SAT prep course, so they could take practice SATs together, or
whatever.
But Blair kept on pushing her way through the crowd and out the
door to the street.
She walked over to Sixth Avenue to catch a cab back uptown. It was
starting to rain and her hair was frizzing. A bus roared by with
Serena’s picture on the side of it. Was it her belly button? It looked
like the dark pit at the center of a peach. Blair turned her back on it
and waved her hand in the air to flag down the next taxi. She
couldn’t get away fast enough. But the first taxi that stopped for her